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Knife Progression

This is inspired by my response to jaybett's "what keeps you going thread" as it got me thinking.

We are all at different stages of this 'hobby' of ours...some just opening their eyes to the world of j-knives and sharpening, others building their collections by trying every maker and style they can, several reducing and simplifying their kit, others completely content with what they have, etc, etc.

Lately I've been in the simplifying/content camp in both knives and sharpening setup. I have already figured out what I like and what works for me, so I no longer have that itch and curiosity to just keep buying more...but like I've said before, that experience is what has gotten me to the state of mind I have today, so I would not change it for anything.

With this in mind, I searched my computer to find pictures that I've taken at different points in my j-knife 'career', as I thought it would be interesting to see how things have changed. Although each 'group' picture doesn't include every knife I've owned, it still shows the progression of how this obsession and grown and matured over time.

This was my set back in mid-2009 which isn't that long ago--I thought I was complete baller at the time, hence taking a picture of my kitchen knives with my cell phone… seriously, who else does that but us?

Sorry this picture is horrible, but I had no idea how to use my camera back then and there was zero natural light in the room…but as you can see, I found JCK and got my Hiromoto and Suien VC shortly after.

This was really when the bug was biting hard…reading on the KF/FF forums everyday and what seemed like placing a new order online every other week. I wanted to try everything within reason to find what would work best for me. Told myself I was never letting any of these go.

A decent amount of experienced gained thus far, but a few more additions that I had to have from my curiosity. At this point I already knew what I liked, but I was just trying to fine-tune everything...this is when I started to think about selling some that I didn't use often anymore.

I’ve sold 6-7 knives in the past several months, and this is my current setup that I am absolutely in love with. I do have a 270 Konosuke HD suji with ebony handle on the way as my final piece of the puzzle…but I don’t think I want to let anything else go. However, I never thought I’d sell any of my knives, but obviously that has changed, so I’m sure my state of mind in the future will be different than it is today.

Anyone else have any pictures that kind of tell their story? I think would be very interested to see them, as I think it is kind of a cool way to see your progressive buying/selling habits.

no pics of the progression, but i started out with all Shuns: 5.5 santoku, 6 chef, 8 chef, 5 utility, and the paring. i then bought a Tojiro DP 210 gyuto. then a Hattori FH 240 gyuto. then an unknown make seki city VG-10 damascus western deba beautifully handled in buffalo horn by a man named Hal Farren. that was packed with a paring knife. the western deba was advertised as a gyuto, but it ain't. anyway, then an Akifusa 240 gyuto. then a Takeda 270 gyuto. then a Konosuke 270 white gyuto. then a Yoshihiro 270 gyuto. then a Yoshihiro 330 yanagi, for practice sharpening (i think i'm ready for an expensive yanagi, as i'm pretty good at polishing and sharpening it, now, and the Yoshihiro was really out of whack, so that's saying something). then a Yoshihiro 180 usuba. then an incredibly cute Ikeuchi 120mm white deba which i bought for chicken and which works perfectly for it. then a Mizuno blue 270 gyuto, which is my favorite knife and which wears a Keller handle. i want to get a better yanagi (the 330 kiritsuke yanagi that Monzaburo makes has caught my eye) and a honyaki gyuto of some kind, but my girlfriend would cut me up with one of my knives if i spent any more money on cutlery any time soon. there will at least be one big vacation before i can buy anything new, i think. win/win, really.

i don't have the Shun Santoku or 6 inch chef, the Farren handled paring, or the Takeda, anymore. the Takeda was one of the CKtG special editions, and it was way too long (being 300mm, really) for a gyuto, but i'd love to try a regular Takeda gyuto, as i liked it other than the length.

OK here we go. My progression has been over 7 or 8 years now, so I don't remember that much. But I did find a lot of pictures.

I used to sell German knives (mostly via eBay) and in the process I was always keeping and trying different knives as well as purchasing knives to try. I had up to 40 or so at any given time. See here for my knife wall.

I never actually planned on always having that many knives in the collection, but with my rotation of what I was selling got up there sometimes.

I'm just a home cook, but I am obsessed with having the best high performance tools, so of course I found my way to Japanese knives. Here is a pic of my first few Japanese knives. I think I got most of these around Christmas 2004?

I think there is a Watanabe nakiri, Tojiro DP gyuto, and two Nenox's include my Iron chef Sakai special edition.

I was always a cleaver fan, you can see several on my "knife wall" but of course my favorites were the CCK's

I went to knife forums and posted how much I loved my CCK's. Up to that point Dexter were the only cleavers every discussed. As many of you know, CCK's were pretty hard to come by, which makes it funny that a small Chinese market in Salt Lake had a stock of them. They had been there for a while. I ended up buying all they had over the next year as I "hooked up" forum members with the elusive CCK. Someone on egullet posted a link to my CCK posts on KF and that is when the craze really took off. Everyone and their dog was trying to find them.

here is a Watanabe cleaver my wife got me for Valentines day.

Here is a picture of my sized down collection (I still hadn't phased out/sold off all my German knives.

here is a cleaver family shot

Here is a pic of the long discontinued Suien VG-10

Here is a pic of my Masahiro M3 custom cleaver, my first really quality high end cleaver that I totally fell in love with. It has a custom handle made by Fish N Poi

I tried several gyutos over the years but always came back to my cleavers.

After trying dozens of knives, both cleavers and not, my favorite maker was Takeda:

Here are some various pics

I have a million more pics, but I'm getting worn out. To close these are two of my most favorite knives. My Masamoto KS wa-gyuto, by far my favorite gyuto ever, I used it today in fact. and probably my favorite cleaver, my Tadatsuna, which of course is discontinued.